it's official!

ok folks, it's official...the scriptures are really true :) you know how it says to arise early that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated? well i always trust the scriptures, but that one's rough when your alarm is going off at 6:30 am ya know? well i did an official experiment to test the hypothesis that this is true... (ok so actually i didn't plan on doing this...but the science nerd in me decided to pretend i did)

EXPERIMENTAL SETUP: sleep in ridiculously late one day...see how your day goes....get up early the next day...compare

RESULTS: so yesterday i slept in til about 9 am (i am really good at convincing myself i deserve it as the alarm is going off and the snooze button is all too accessible). and THEN i didn't even get up right away...it took me almost thirty minutes to REALLY get out of bed (you know how you like make your bed but then lay on top....then you turn on the light, but go lay back down? yeah that's me sometimes). even when i finally got out of bed i kept getting distracted by things i didn't really need to do and i was just slow. anyway...long story short, i just wasn't as productive as i could have been.

fast forward to this morning. look at how much I've accomplished (and it's now 9 am, the same time i woke up yesterday). I got up at 7 (yes actually UP), studied the scriptures for 30 min (yes actually STUDIED, not just read), cleaned the kitchen, showered, got cute (yes actually CUTE for once), ate strawberries and yogurt for breakfast (yes i actually ate breakfast and it was actually healthy), and prepared caesar wraps for lunch (yes HOMEMADE). plus i got to jam to some sweet james taylor tunes while i got ready. I LOVE TODAY.

GOAL: remember this experiment next time my alarm is going off....

nbd

my first 10k . . . the rex lee run!

i finished in 57:45. not bad for my first time

(especially since i was running 11 minute miles in january when i started out).

some favorite moments:

*taking a wrong turn hear the end and having to backtrack while looking like a total idiot

*my headband flying off my head and hitting the guy behind me in the face (it was one of those elastic ones) good times

*starting to get tired around mile 4 when "running on empty" came on the ipod. legit. pumped me up, made me think of dad.

*passing guys along the way. yeah that felt cool.

*coming in 261st haha (but hey, not bad out of 454! i never claimed to be fast...)

*running with my roommate steph! (well STARTING the race with steph. she's hard core)

posters!

so today was the day jen and i got to present our posters :) the poster session is 2 hours long, with the odd-numbered posters presenting for the 1st hour and the evens for the 2nd hour. people wander around looking at posters that interest them and you get to walk them through your project and answer their questions. i was supposed to present for the 2nd hour but went over to my poster at the beginning to put my coat down. there were a couple guys looking it over so i started answering their questions. after that i had a steady stream of people almost the whole 2 hours! it's so fun to be able to share what i study and feel legit enough to talk about it with scientists from all over the world. today i made friends with people from india, germany, spain, columbia, and denmark! (haha funny aside....i couldn't remember the name "denmark" for a few minutes there...i had to ask jen what the country was called that speaks danish...and she just gave me the look that means i'm challenged...haha awesome) anyway! it was good times. This was an interesting project to present because i actually didn't do any of the experiments! they were done back in the year 2000 when i was thirteen years old :) then i was the one who analyzed all the experiments before my mission. i even blogged about this project here and here. now years later, i'm finally presenting the data! haha.

new friends . . .

well i am blogging from BALTIMORE, MARYLAND today! jen, hannabeth, dr bell, and i are here for the biophysical society annual meeting. more nerdy details to come. but for now, wanted to share my favorite baltimore-ites. i love making new friends!

*RUSH: so we flew out of salt lake around 9:45 am yesterday. it was a four hour flight, yet all we got to eat was PRETZELS. we got pretty excited when we saw the people in front of us get TWO bags of peanuts each. we were sorely disappointed when we only got ONE bag of pretzels a piece. i don't know if there are a different rules for peanuts or if we just weren't cool enough. either way, i was pretty hungry. i had a cinnamon roll for breakfast (thanks mom!), but lets be honest, that's just not enough to hold you for 6 hours. by the time we caught our super shuttle (they almost tried to drop us off at days inn instead of the radisson... close call) and got our bags up to the hotel room, i was famished. one of the many things i learned on my mission was that i get cranky when i'm hungry. i still don't entirely think this is true, but that's what my companions told me. however, yesterday it was definitely true! i was cranky! (in a pleasant way of course). the concierge suggest Tony's Grill one block over, and boy are we glad he did. our buddy Rush was there to greet us at the door! he seated us and handed us menus. we glanced at them for a bit, a little disappointed at how expensive everything was. when Rush came by again, i told him how excited we were to be there and i told him just how hungry i was. then the miracle. he said "you know what? i have a deal just for you. i have a special take out menu, only $5.99 for delicious sandwiches with fries...be right back...just for you!" then he came back with the top secret menu...just for us. dinner for $6 ain't bad i say. later when i asked for more water, Rush tipped off my glass and said "anything for you? you know this right? anything for you!" so moral of the story is, sometimes it pays to tell people just how hungry you are...in a very pleasant way of course. i think we're going to hit up tony's another time or 2 :)

*THE CONCIERGE: so turns out i forgot my toothbrush. yup. sad day. you'd think i'd be responsible enough to bring a toothbrush but no. so this morning i called up the front desk and they told me they had some. i ran down and came back up with a toothbrush, 3 things of toothpaste, and 3 bottles of mouthwash. i told him how i just hadn't been a very good packer and he said, "you know what, i'm going to hook you up!" and he did. i think i should go down again and tell him i forgot my boots and a rain coat and see if he will hook me up with those too :)

*HOUSEKEEPING: well this one was actually all Jen. we went to church this morning (by the way, friendliest ward i've ever been to! so fun) and came back and took a little power nap. we were awoken by housekeeping knocking on the door. we opened up and told her we were leaving in a couple minutes. jen ended up talking to her for like 15 minutes, helped her clean up the towels, and talked her into giving us 3 more bottles of shampoo and conditioner AND extra towels. i think we're her favorite room now. (note .... i know what you're saying... our hotel friends would've given ANYBODY extra toothpaste, shampoo, and conditioner... but trust me... we have something special with these people)

*our last little friend is actually not a friend. mostly this is just a random story. so last night jen and i went on a search for 7-11 to see if we could buy some snacks. turns out it was a lame-o 7-11 with nothing that we wanted (except dibs...that will be a purchase later this week...). anyway on the way back, we saw this guy crouching in the middle of the road. upon closer inspection, we realized he was holding a 6-inch knife, scraping a manhole cover. what the random! i wasn't even creative enough to come up with an explanation. needless to say, we decided we should always follow the buddy system while wandering around baltimore after dark :) good times.

let's wrap up this post with some pics. we walked to church this morning...so i decided to have comfy footwear :) dr bell was kind enough to stick my heels in his bag for later. also, i felt pretty legit in this chair, so jen helped me document it.

ps - check out my legit badge. yup i'm a member of the biophysical society.

a reunion of epic proportions!!

it was the first time all 7 of us had been together in TWENTY TWO MONTHS!

Ryan got his first taste of the craziness that is ALL of the gibbons together for games. this night's game: acquire. watch out . . . you may get yelled at, mocked, slapped, or ganged up on. especially when it gets late at night :)

sometimes we like to hang out under the piano... that is to say we will do anything james wants to do! haha

other highlights of the weekend include our snowman, snowdog, and igloo with a book of mormon keystone. pretty legit. pictures to come.

there's nothing like family :) i can't wait for this weekend! the WHOLE fam will be there (including jonathan!) and josh will give his farewell talk in church.

what does YOUR family do when they get together?

well MINE makes up completely random, simple games that turn into intense competitions.

this time around, it was "pens o' plenty" (i can't remember who came up with this one? josh?) the rules are simple: toss the pen . . . the person who gets closest to the edge of the table without falling off WINS!

and the winner pics! (ryan beat out mom at the last minute . . . )

simple pleasures :)

and the winner is . . .

ARKANSAS LITTLE ROCK!

happy for me since that means i can go visit a lot :)

ps - i attempted to upload this AWESOME mp3 ... "happy little home in arkansas" ... unfortunately there was a tragedy and there was an ERROR ... even after i paid a whole $0.99 for it on amazon ... even though my parents already had it ... just so i could have an entertaining blog post ... oh well you can't win them all

my life as a runner . . .

Let's be honest, I haven't always been a runner. In fact, the first time I really ran consistently was with my dear friend Diane. She and I (then Sister Bush and Sister Gibbons) started running together on the mission with the Glacier Park ward cheering us on :)

After running 4 miles with Sister Moulton and Sister Allen on preparation day!

After we got home, we ran our first 5k together on Thanksgiving!

Next stop, HALF MARATHON!!

April 16, 2011

I paid today, so I guess I better really do it now :) I've still got a long way to go, but I started training this week and I'm feeling great! I figure if my pops can run like 50 marathons, I should be able to do a half right? He's my inspiration, and Diane is the perfect person to do it with. LOVE YOU BOTH!

the DEATH CARROT!

so lots of people wonder what the heck i study all the time and what my thesis is about. (okay i'm probably flattering myself...most people don't care...but sometimes people ask! haha) anyway, that is a long explanation...but here's random sneak peek that i felt like blogging about.

so i study programmed cell death (apoptosis)...specifically cell death triggered by a certain drug: thapsigargin. it's isolated from this plant:

Thapsia garganica

it's pretty huh? ok that's totally irrelevant....anyway! thapsigargin looks like this...

even prettier huh? anyway you probably don't care...but basically, the coolest thing about this drug (besides the fact that it inhibits the endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase and floods the cytoplasm with calcium and kills the cell) is that it is nicknamed the death carrot! (apparently it was used in arabic medicine for 2000 yrs and picked up that nickname somehow) pretty sweet huh? i spend 40 hrs a week in a lab studying a death carrot. now i need to get back to filling in that big hole in my thesis... :( thank you for humoring me and letting me talk about nerdy things.

only change is constant :)

hello hello... once again i spent too much time playing with my blog's design and now it is getting too late so i don't have much time to post! i've discovered i get distracted easily... anyway, i will give you a brief update on my life (so i can get to bed) and there will be more fun pictures to come! lots has changed since i last posted...

#1 - i moved back to p-town! i am a byu student once again, finishing up my masters! (and by finishing up, i mean i still have more than a year left... which i am pretty excited about.) it's been kind of rough getting the old brain working again (i know i didn't learn a foreign language on my mission...but it's hard to start speaking "science" again...secretory phospholipase A2 didn't come up much on the mission!) but i'm loving it! secretly, i'm also LOVING having a math class for the first time since senior year of high school. yay differential equations! anyway, my buddy eric helped me get an apartment in his ward and i was lucky to get super cute roommates (see picture).

#2 - I am hoping to visit the family a lot on sundays etc because we are soon to scatter! Josh has been called to serve a 2 year mission in Oaxaca, Mexico (beginning March 30...i think!) and my parents have been called to serve for 3 years as a mission president and full time missionary (beginning July 1st - location to be determined)! i really don't think i can express how much i love these three and how proud i am of them. josh is going to be an awesome missionary! i thought about that very often on my mission and i can't wait to hear about all of his experiences. my parents have been amazing examples to me of consecrating your life to the Lord and trusting Him. talk about faith. it will definitely be life changing to have them leave for so long, but i wouldn't have it any other way!

more to come of the AMAZING adventures in the life of liz :)